Netspot (OSX) shows 488 radios in my office space. It is medical office building next in a major hospital, with a university right next door.
Add in that the building is line of sight with a major airport, so that takes out a lot of channels. One netgear router is reporting 5Ghz channels 52,56,60,64,100,104,108,112,116,120,124,128 are DFS, so not available. Leaving only 36,40,44,48,149,153,157,161.
It is in a medical building so there are numerous other sources of signal, MRI's. It is also along a bus route with the electric busses, those things are super noisy according to my am radio testing. Someone here pointed out AM radios are great for general idea of signal sources.
I usually just buy better consumer grade wireless routers and run them in AP mode. I read the reviews here on snb and read the forums and try to pick the router with the better wireless chipset. Often just using one of the higher end ASUS or Netgear routers.
I am trying one of the Netgear R9000. It just does not seem to have that great of radio strength. Firmware version 1.0.3.10 made the router way more stable, faster, and greatly improved radio performance, but it still seems to be way below ASUS RT-AC3200.
I have looked a lot at Ubiquity, EnGenius, and even a Meraki and Cisco. I just look at the radios they are using and they seem so expensive for what you are getting. I don't see that they are that much better. I guess the advantage is you can put 300 AP's up and let the controller do the management/switching.
We are an office of 45 people, so I am not sure we need all that wireless gear overhead. We cover with 4 routers. When I first got here they had Ubiquity routers, but they were super cheap ones, very old, and not well configured.
I guess what I am looking for is strategies/approaches people have used in this crowded of a space. Go get a Cisco controller and 10 APs? Most of the wireless consultants seem to be just pimping gear.
Add in that the building is line of sight with a major airport, so that takes out a lot of channels. One netgear router is reporting 5Ghz channels 52,56,60,64,100,104,108,112,116,120,124,128 are DFS, so not available. Leaving only 36,40,44,48,149,153,157,161.
It is in a medical building so there are numerous other sources of signal, MRI's. It is also along a bus route with the electric busses, those things are super noisy according to my am radio testing. Someone here pointed out AM radios are great for general idea of signal sources.
I usually just buy better consumer grade wireless routers and run them in AP mode. I read the reviews here on snb and read the forums and try to pick the router with the better wireless chipset. Often just using one of the higher end ASUS or Netgear routers.
I am trying one of the Netgear R9000. It just does not seem to have that great of radio strength. Firmware version 1.0.3.10 made the router way more stable, faster, and greatly improved radio performance, but it still seems to be way below ASUS RT-AC3200.
I have looked a lot at Ubiquity, EnGenius, and even a Meraki and Cisco. I just look at the radios they are using and they seem so expensive for what you are getting. I don't see that they are that much better. I guess the advantage is you can put 300 AP's up and let the controller do the management/switching.
We are an office of 45 people, so I am not sure we need all that wireless gear overhead. We cover with 4 routers. When I first got here they had Ubiquity routers, but they were super cheap ones, very old, and not well configured.
I guess what I am looking for is strategies/approaches people have used in this crowded of a space. Go get a Cisco controller and 10 APs? Most of the wireless consultants seem to be just pimping gear.